Herhold: A Gilroy homicide with a doctor as defendant

Before Doris Mae Knapp was found killed at her Gilroy home on April 1, her life seemed to be on an even keel. She had been married for 37 years to Dr. German Baldeon, an Ecuadorean native she met aboard a Project Hope medical ship in the 1970s.

For 25 years after they arrived in Gilroy in 1986, Knapp, 74, and her 68-year-old husband worked together in a Gilroy medical clinic. He treated the patients and Knapp administered the office. The couple had a grown son, Michael, 35.

"She was a well-educated woman," said Rosemary Elder, one of their neighbors on Bristlecone Court, where the couple had an unimposing two-story house. "They seemed like a nice couple."

Dr. German Baldeon of Gilroy has been arrested on suspicion of killing his wife, Doris Knapp. (Courtesy Gilroy Police Department)

Early this month, authorities began to supply a few vague answers about what happened. They arrested Baldeon on a charge of homicide and said they were looking for one of his friends, David Galvez Sr., 59, of Tracy, in connection with the killing. Galvez, a bulky man at 5-foot-8 and 220 pounds, is assumed to have fled the country.

I got interested in the case for a couple of reasons: First, doctors are not accused of homicide very often. It violates their basic oath. And second, Baldeon and Knapp were at an age when the passion needed for such a crime has cooled.

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Baldeon, who remains in custody on $1 million bail, has yet to face trial and is expected to resist the charges. Yet there were signs that not all was well with the Knapp-Baldeon marriage. Baldeon had struck out professionally on his own, working at a Salinas clinic for the poor, Clinica de Salud del Valle. Two years ago, Knapp returned to her 55th high school reunion in Illinois without her husband.

Like a hockey team loath to give away details of an injury, the cops have described Knapp's injuries only as "upper-body trauma," though TV news reports have said she was stabbed. The police say a family member, whom reporters have identified as Baldeon, was present when the paramedics arrived at the home.

Even as a septuagenarian, Knapp was known for her dedication and her hardiness. Four years ago, she was walking her dog along the Uvas Creek levee when the 12-year-old chow mix, Genghis, was set upon by two pit bulls.

According to news reports, Knapp became entangled in the leash and broke her arm. Not wanting to disappoint her students, she insisted on teaching a nursing class at Gavilan College with an unset bone. "I'm old enough to have been through a few things," she said. "You go with the bumps."

"She was an exemplary person," said Jim Houlihan, a classmate of Knapp's in the class of 1957 at Eureka High School in Illinois. Houlihan remembers that she participated in band, chorus and student council. "It was the 1950s, and both of were set on careers."

Knapp had an adventurous streak: She went to Northwestern University's School of Medical Technology, got a master's degree from Baylor, and was part of a research team at Columbia that later won a Nobel Prize for research on insulin.

But one of her greatest joys was working aboard the international health care Ship Hope in Recife, Brazil. With her duty on land for the organization, she became fluent in Portuguese and Spanish.

When she was buried in Illinois, her obituary identified her as a "passionate supporter and volunteer" for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Comparatively, less is known about Baldeon, or his precise relationship with David Galvez. He had no record of medical complaints. The Facebook page of the doctor, whose first name is pronounced "Heer-man," reveals that he is a passionate supporter of Ecuador's left-leaning president, Rafael Correa.

I stopped by the Clinica de Salud del Valle last Wednesday, where Baldeon reportedly requested a vacation in April and has not returned. It gives every sign of being a place for a doctor with a progressive bent. The parking lot is full of the cars of the needy.

Do I know what happened in the Baldeon-Knapp marriage? No, and I'm not sure any of us really will. What's striking here is the reversal of roles: A man who spent his life caring for the health of others now stands accused of killing the woman who helped him. It's an understatement to call it a puzzle.